All Is Well (at least for right now)
by bitteninboston
Summary: Two years after going to Tommy's, Ellie and Joel find themselves heading back to Texas to close the chapter that started it all in Joel's life. They run into problems that anyone would face in this apocalyptic world, and their bond is tested when they wonder if they can actually rely on the other. Rated T for swearing and for some scenes that may be too much for some people.
1. Chapter 1

**Alright! This is my first fic, and I'm proud, if I do say so myself. Because wow. I actually wrote something. I'll try to update this as frequently as I can, too.  
****Disclaimer: I do not own The Last of Us, or it's characters [even though I want to, so I can make them, y'know, not die]**

* * *

The first thing that Ellie notices when she wakes up is that it is _so damn hot. _Summer had started a few weeks ago, and it felt like the temperature was rising up and never stopping. Joel had told her that it was just humid, and it was typically likely this. She's not stupid, she knows what humid is - she's dealt with her fair share of summers through her sixteen years - but none this hot. It was probably because they were getting further south. At the military boarding school, they had just told them that it's cold sometimes during the year, and hot at other times, and hotter if you got further south, they never explained why.

"It's the equator," Joel had said, when she asked him, like she had any idea what that word meant. "It's a line. Kinda splits the world in half. It gets warmer if you're closer to it."

She had spent a lot of time arguing with Maria about attending a school they had started up a few months after she and Joel had gotten there. Maria said it would be good for her, for her to meet other kids in the town, and to learn more about the world; Ellie said that all she had to know in this world was how to fire a gun and how to communicate with other people.

She yawned, sitting up, looking around her, trying to see if Joel was still asleep. He usually never was when she woke up, he had said that she needed her sleep better than he did, so he never woke her. Ellie was a light sleeper, so if she heard the rustling sound of him moving blankets - which, no, in this weather - or the sound of him going through his backpack, she woke up. Strangely, she didn't see him. He probably went out to gather whatever he could find before she woke up. He's done that a few times before, just grabbing his bag and going, hoping not to wake her in the process.

She stood up, getting her bag, slinging it across her shoulders. She looked at their mini campsite, seeing if there was anything that they would need to take with them, since once she found Joel, they would most likely just go ahead and move on. She grabbed the canteen, and her switchblade, lying on the ground where her backpack just was, since she used the backpack as a pillow.

It was a weird transition going from trying to survive in vast weather conditions, infected attacks, and hunters, to living in Tommy and Maria's town, and then back to the former again. They had given them a home, and told them to call it their own, which they eventually did, but obviously not at first. Ellie had never had a steady home, just having the bottom bunk in all the rooms she resided in, and Joel only considered his house back in Texas to be his home, but they worked it out.

When they got used to living in the same bed multiple nights in a row, Joel started working shifts at a guard post with some people he never talked about till one night he said that Isaac fell asleep in the tower, and Joel and Rachel couldn't wake him up until they had to shoot a clicker. Ellie had told Tommy she could work shifts, too, but he had told her that there was a eighteen age limit to it - she still thinks it's the stupidest thing she had ever heard. She had groaned, and said that that's stupid, and that she can shoot better than all their men combined. Joel had snorted.

After two years, Joel had sat her down, and said he needed to talk to her.

"I'm goin' go back," he had said after a moment of silence, "back to Texas."

"Joel..." she had started, looking at him, knowing that there were too many skeletons in that closet that he might not want to go back to. She also knew that once Joel sets his mind to something he carries it out, no matter what. "How-How long are you going to be gone?"

"Not long," he said, tapping his finger on the table to a rhythm that she didn't know. "I'll go there, stay probably a few days, then be back about late fall. Maybe early winter. Don't know for sure."

"Are you taking Tommy with you?" she had asked, watching his mouth change to a flat line.

"No," he said, "Tommy said being there once was enough for him, but he'd go if I wanted him to, but I know Maria'd just kick my ass if I tried to drag him out across the great US terrain, again."

Ellie smiled.

"You're just gonna go alone? I mean, you shouldn't. You shouldn't have to do that alone, Joel." She bit her lip, hoping that it was the right thing to say. "The trip is long, y'know. And you have to go through cities full of infected and hunters, and we barely made it with the two of us."

"I've gone longer alone, Ellie, you know that."

"Yeah, but it's your home from before the outbreak. It's where - " she hesitated, knowing that she could say it, because they've talked about it before, but they've only gone so far with it. They've never actually said the words 'Sarah' and 'died' together before. He's told her things _about _Sarah, and how he's said them told her enough. The problem needed to be said, though, because from what it sounded like, he wanted to face it alone. For all she cared, he could go with Isaac, the sleeping guard, as long as he was with someone. " - where Sarah died."

Joel drew in a breath, pulling his lips together, slowing his tapping finger down, "I know, Ellie," he said, "that's why I wanted to ask if you'd come with me."

* * *

"Hey, kiddo," Joel said when Ellie found him, he was currently looking at a trap they had set the night before, just in case they didn't miss any food that scurried by.

"Find anything, yet?" She asked, already noting that no animals were hanging from his pack, and none in his hands.

He sighed, shaking his head, "No, nothin', but maybe that's a good thing. You don't know how long it'd last till we found a good place to cook it. I don't intend on staying here too long, either. It's best we keep goin' so we get back to Tommy's before winter."

Ellie nodded, pulling at the straps on her backpack, "Alright."

"C'mon, we can probably make Denver by nightfall."

"Denver?" Ellie asked, knowing that it was one of the few Quarantine Zones still up. Marlene had told her of the ones still running, when she had asked. The only reason she had asked was because she heard some of the military talking about the Omaha QZ getting overrun by the infected, and was left abandoned. "No way, Joel! We can't do that! If we make it in, we aren't even certain we could get out! You know what happened in Boston when we - "

"Ellie," Joel starts, his voice stern, cutting her off, mid-sentence, "We'll be fine. Promise. I don't know if you know this but a lot of the Zone's have smugglin' routes. We can get through them, and through the city without much hassle." He started to walk, shaking his head and glanced back, "I thought I told you what the plan was back at the dam?"

Ellie crossed her arms, walking after him, making a small huffing sound, "I guess I didn't hear correctly."

"Or you weren't listenin' at all."

"I was, actually."

"Uh-huh."

"I was!"

"Alright."

"How do you know about them anyway?" Ellie paused. "The smuggling routes, I mean. You never mentioned you'd lived in Denver."

"I haven't. Had a friend. Said he was movin' out to Denver a few months before you showed up. I don't remember why, though. I think some guys with bigger guns and more men had somethin' 'gainst him."

"So you just think he's going to help us? Like Bill did? 'Cause to be perfectly honest, I don't want to go through being handcuffed to a fucking pole again."

"I did warn you," Joel said, a slight 'I told you' tone to his voice, "it wasn't like he took too kindly to you, too. You _did _almost break his shootin' arm."

"Oh, ha ha. Funny."

Joel let out a sigh, which somehow managed to form into a cough. "Wayne's a good guy, so don't worry. He'll help us. He got me out of a few sticky situations back in Boston, and never held me to repayin' him. You never meet those people in this world anymore."

Ellie nodded, jogging up to meet Joel's strides. "After two years...how do you know he's still smuggling? If that's what caused the mess in Boston?"

"Smugglin' is the best way to get around, and to get fed. You can do some jobs to earn ration cards, but too many people get put outside the wall, and never come back."

"Oh."

"Yeah." Joel adjusted his backpack. "Wayne just picked the wrong guys to be hired by. He's probably bein' more cautious now."

"_Probably,_" Ellie mumbled under her breath.

"Hush," Joel said, as they reached an actual cement road. He pointed towards the right, "If we keep headin' this direction, we can make it to highway. We can figure out which way from there."

"Lead the way."

* * *

**Whoop! There it is! I have an idea where I want to go with this, but sigh, I am the simple writer of the story, and the story cannot control me. In my idea someone dies, so let us pray that it doesn't play out.  
****As I said in the header, I will try to update this as frequently as I can, but I am a simple human being. I cannot write a chapter everyday (though I very well can try). I have school which sucks, and friends who need my undying attention, and family who I see every so often.  
But who needs sleep?**


	2. Chapter 2

**So. Wow. I'm actually updating this. I thought I was going to give it out. Huh.**

* * *

"Woah," Ellie said, looking at the buildings, as the city steadily came into view.

Joel scoffed, "What? Haven't you seen a city before?"

Ellie rolled her eyes, knowing that Joel couldn't see them. Unless he had an extra pair of eyes under his hair that he hadn't cut in awhile. Neither had Ellie, so she couldn't blame him. Her hair reached several inches past her shoulders, even when she put it up in a ponytail, and Joel had told her how easily it was to be grabbed when it was so long, and she had just shrugged. She had thought it was alright to grow it out, as long as they were in Tommy's town.

She makes a mental note to cut it when she finds a pair of scissors.

"Pffh. Like you're not over the view." Even after the many different cities and towns that Ellie has seen, she always feels like it's a new adventure when she sees a new one. No, not adventure. That's not a good word for it. She feels like all her air is leaving her body, but she can still breath. Breathtaking, maybe.

"You should've seen it when it was all lit up," Joel says, vaulting over a fallen tree in the road, and Ellie followed suit. "You would've loved it."

Ellie tries to imagine it, trying to see Denver with lights and people, and cars, but couldn't. All she could see was what was right in front of her - the destruction and scraps of the city that was left to be put back together again.

"You've been here before? I thought you said you haven't?"

"I said I never lived here," Joel corrected. "Me and Sarah went to a few cities one summer. I'd gotten enough money from my job and enough vacation days so I could travel with her. We went to Denver, Albuquerque, and Phoenix. It wasn't major cities at the time, but Sarah loved it."

Ellie noticed the sad smile on his face, and the weary way he talked, like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders, and could barely manage. Her mouth opened, to say something about how they they were going on a road trip, too, but she didn't want to compare herself to Sarah. If they had a list of things they didn't do, one of those was to not compare each other to someone from their past that had even a sliver of importance.

Joel stops suddenly, making Ellie almost bump into him. He looks off into the distance, squinting his eyes a little bit. "Ellie, c'mon, we're gonna have to cut around the city, so the soldiers don't see us."

Joel started to walk again, and Ellie tried to see what he saw, but saw nothing but buildings and faint objects moving and - _oh_. Yeah, those were military trucks. Ellie followed him, quickening her steps, trying to match his long strides with her quick feet.

"Do we just wait for it to get pitch black? Soldiers have shifts and they'll have any entrance that leads to Denver blocked off and - "

"I know, Ellie."

"I know you know, but what if I said something that could help us? I could share a piece of information that you didn't know and we _could_ - "

"Be quiet."

"You need to stop interrupting me, Joel, that is - "

Joel gave her a look, and put a finger to his lips, pulling her down behind an abandoned car that must've swerved off the road before the outbreak. It worked to their advantage, due to the fact that a military truck was driving up the road roughly ten yards from them. Two other trucks followed it.

"They're leaving?"

"No," Joel said sternly. "It's probably just a search party - y'know, for food, clothes, medicine. Anything they can find a purpose for in the zone."

"They need three trucks for that?"

"You'd be amazed what a handful of people can't manage."

Ellie hesitated, then nodded. She and Joel had battled the world together, and lived to tell the tale, with only a few battle scars. Given her bite, and his abdomen wound, they could be worse for wear. Of course, Ellie could be dead, and Joel would've felt like it was his fault, just like with Sarah.

They talked about the incident with the Fireflies a few months after it happened. Ellie yelled at him, screamed really. She told him that she gave him a chance to tell her the truth, to redeem himself, in a way. She doesn't know why she was so angry at the time, maybe it had been because she expected that Joel was obligated to tell her the truth, after all they had been through. Since that wasn't the case, she had spent the next few days edging away from him when he got near, and walking into a different room when he entered the one she was in.

After awhile, she couldn't take it, but she didn't want to show that she had forgiven him. She was mad at him, for keeping it to himself, and mad at herself for having such a codependent relationship with a man she'd barely known a year, that she could barely go a few days without talking to him or being around him. In that time, she figured out a way she could understand. If the Fireflies had found a vaccine, how would they get it to all the people of the world, and how would the people respond, after all of their failed attempts? She had suspected not well, and then her death would be worth nothing except to start another war of the people, fighting to see who would have control of the vaccine.

She had talked to Joel the next day - knowing that he would give her her space until she either decided to forgive him, or to never talk to him again - and made him promise to never lie to her again. She had half-joked that they needed to make a blood pact.

"With less patrols, it'll be easier to find an opening that the military forgot to cover," Joel states, getting up from his crouching position when the trucks were long gone. "From there we can find Wayne."

He looked at her, as if he was checking to see if she was still there, still existing. As if he was given his answer, he turned back around, hand playing with the holster of the revolver, he sighed. "This could take awhile, y'know. Who knows how many buildings we'll have to check before we find a loose board."

Ellie lifted the right side of her mouth into a half smile, "If I hadn't known what I was getting into, I wouldn't have come with you."

* * *

Joel pushed the loose board open as far as it could go, holding it open. "Go on, see if you can get it open from the other side."

Ellie nodded, climbing through the window. It was pitch black, so she reached toward her flashlight, hesitating, listening to whatever she could hear, to make sure she was alone. She only heard the faint sound of air whistling through the cracks in the boards on the windows. She clicked the flashlight on, seeing a bedroom, clothes scattered across the floor. Obviously the former residents left in a hurry.

"Everything alright in there?" she head Joel call.

"Yeah!" she shouted back, looking for anything that could take out a nail, but she found nothing. She could look throughout the house, but that'd take too much time. She looked at the two nails on the board in the upper and bottom right corners. The bottom one looks like it was barely in there, so she _could _try to pull it out. That was their best bet anyway, so she pulled. It came out in roughly three seconds, "Can you get through?"

"It'll be a tight fit, but I think I can manage," Joel's voice echoed through the room, as Ellie started to pry open the board, and Joel's backpack fell to the floor, and Ellie could only assume that it would just make it harder to get through the window if he kept it on.

"Alright, we're in Denver," Ellie starts, once Joel gets into the room, and turns on his flashlight once he puts his backpack back on, "how do we find Wayne?"

Joel pressed his lips together, like the answer wasn't good enough to come out yet. He opened it barely, and said, "We hope for the best."

"Oh. Fuck."

"Yeah," Joel says, letting one strap of his backpack off his shoulder so it swung around so that he could look through it. He looked like he was digging into the deepest depths of his bag when he pulled out some familiar green pieces of paper. "Ration cards. We can ask around, see if anyone knows a Wayne."

"There could be lots of Wayne's, Joel."

"I did say we had to hope for the best."

Ellie wanted to scream.

If hope was all they were working off for this trip, they weren't going to make it.

* * *

**I was planning on making this longer, to where they met Wayne, and they got into Denver, but I obviously didn't. I'm planning on making these longer, but because of it being kind of a filler, than I don't have any motive to continue. Hopefully when things get up and poppin' it'll be better to read, and idek.  
Hope you enjoy it, though!**


End file.
